## Facts

- Slavko Ciric and his wife, Slavica Ciric, were ethnic Serbs from the former Yugoslavia who sought Convention refugee status in Canada.
- Slavko had completed prior compulsory military service in the 1980s.
- After hostilities began in 1991, Yugoslav/Serbian authorities conscripted Serbian men to fight in the conflicts.
- Slavko opposed participation, went into hiding to avoid conscription, and the couple left for Canada in September 1991.
- They asserted that return would expose Slavko to severe punishment (including imprisonment and possibly execution) for draft evasion and refusal to participate in military operations associated with grave human-rights abuses.
- Before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), they relied on country-condition materials and international statements describing widespread atrocities and international denunciation of conduct in the conflict.
- The IRB accepted in principle that refusal to serve in a particular military action may support a refugee claim, but rejected their claim for insufficient proof of international condemnation and for treating likely penalties as ordinary law enforcement rather than persecution.

## Issues

1. Whether the IRB erred by concluding that there was insufficient evidence of international condemnation of the conflict to treat the relevant military action as contrary to basic rules of human conduct.
2. Whether the IRB erred by characterizing the likely consequences for draft evasion as prosecution under a law of general application rather than persecution linked to a Convention ground.
3. Whether the IRB’s errors affected its determination that the applicants lacked a well-founded fear of persecution.

## Decision

- The Federal Court granted judicial review and set aside the IRB’s decision.
- The Court held that the IRB’s treatment of the evidence on international condemnation and country conditions was legally flawed and/or unreasonable.
- The Court held that the IRB misdirected itself by analyzing the claim as ordinary draft evasion without adequately addressing the nature of the conflict, the acts the claimant might be compelled to commit, and the severity and purpose of punishment for refusal.
- The matter was remitted to the IRB for redetermination by a differently constituted panel applying the correct framework.

## Legal Principles

- Punishment for refusing military service may amount to persecution where the refusal is to participate in a particular military campaign substantially condemned by the international community as contrary to basic rules of human conduct.
- A tribunal must assess the totality of relevant country-condition evidence when determining whether a conflict or military operations have been internationally denounced in a manner material to the refugee analysis.
- Prosecution under a law of general application does not preclude a finding of persecution where the penalty for refusal is excessive, discriminatory, or linked to the claimant’s political opinion (or other Convention ground), particularly when refusal is tied to avoiding participation in condemned acts.
- On judicial review, deference to fact-finding does not shield decisions that ignore, mischaracterize, or unreasonably assess key evidence central to the applicable legal test.

## Conclusion

The court required the refugee tribunal to reassess a conscription-based claim by properly evaluating evidence of international condemnation and by distinguishing neutral enforcement from persecution where refusal to serve is connected to avoiding participation in internationally denounced conduct and severe punishment for that refusal.


Ciric v. Canada (Minister of Emp. & Immigr.), 2 F.C. 65 (Fed. Ct. Trial Div. 1994)